Discussion of Vatican Saying 63 - "Frugality Too Has A Limit..."

Quote from Little Rocker

Don, I love how you produce posts like the ones above and then say you're no good at such things.

I am just painfully aware of what I don't know when it comes to ancient Greek. I don't want to succumb to the Dunning-Kruger Effect or to pretend I'm fluent. I often feel like I know just enough to get myself into trouble!! Then the curiosity and enthusiasm take hold, all caution goes out the window, and I end up posting deep dives into manuscripts and paleography... but ask me to conjugate a verb past the present indicative or decline a noun into all its various permutations, and I'm going to have to look it up!

Quote from Cassius

Do I recall correctly that Usener wrote in German? I presume that now given our internet reach we have the ability to ask Martin and possibly others as well for assistance in understanding Usener's own notes on these issues?

Or are you already able to consult Usener?

He actually wrote in Latin:

Hermann Usener Epicurea ( 1887) : Hermann Usener (editor) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Epicurea is a collection of texts, fragments and testimonies by Epicurus composed by Hermann Usener in 1887

archive.org

I've been using Bailey and Usener interchangeably since I think Bailey was a protege of his?

Quote from Cassius

I never tracked it down further - it has just seemed that everybody who is anybody in the world of Epicurus cites Usener.

Yep. He's the U in Usener Fragment

Oh, and Anderson's site is the only English version of Usener's Epicurea that I know of...

Epicurus: Fragments - translation

However, Bailey follows Usener's Epicurea format quite closely... although Usener didn't include the Vatican Sayings because they weren't discovered until after Epicurea's publication! Bailey includes this in this preface:

Vatican Gnomologium. This is contained in Codex Vaticanus gr. 1950, a MS. of the fourteenth century. It was first published by C. Wotke, with some notes by Usener and Gomperz in Wiener Studien, vol. x (1888). Von der Muehll has collated the MS. again from photographs and in some cases has cor- rected the readings reported by Wotke. In the majority of these excerpts the text is fairly sound, but there are some in which it still remains very uncertain.

Here are the Weiner Studien papers from 1888 by Wotke, Usner, and Gomperz:

Wiener Studien : Schenkl, Karl, 1827-1900, ed : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Book digitized by Google from the library of the University of Michigan and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.

archive.org

And here is Usener's VS63 and footnotes:

Wiener Studien : Schenkl, Karl, 1827-1900, ed : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Book digitized by Google from the library of the University of Michigan and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.

archive.org

He does state that the manuscript says εν λεπτοτητι καθαριος in the footnote but has his "corrected" text in the body of the paper.

Quote from Pacatus

Don How would you, personally, render V63 in English? Maybe taking a stab at both formal equivalence and a more dynamic rendering?

Be careful what you ask for...

TLDR: Here’s my attempt at a translation, a little literal, a little paraphrase:

There is elegance even in simplicity. The one who is unable to consider this is nearly equivalent to the one who falls down because of a lack of limits.

If you’re interested in how that was arrived at, feel free to read on:

I realize this post is WAY too much information and far into the weeds; but, as requested, I’m sharing my translation of VS63; however, in deference to observation by Little Rocker and my response, I’m going to “show my work” so everyone can see what I don’t know and what I had to look up.

First, we have to determine the Greek text I'm going to work with.

Muehli:

ἔστι καὶ ἐν λεπτότητι καθαριότης, ἧς ὁ ἀνεπιλόγιστος παραπλήσιόν τι πάσχει τῷ διʼ ἀοριστίαν ἐκπίπτοντι.

Usner:

ἔστι καὶ ἐν λιτότητι μεθόριος, ἧς ὁ ἀνεπιλόγιστος παραπλήσιόν τι πάσχει τῷ διʼ ἀοριστίαν ἐκπίπτοντι..

Vat.gr.1950 manuscript clearly has:

ἔστι καὶ ἐν λεπτότητι καθάριος, ἧς ὁ ἀνεπιλόγιστος παραπλήσιόν τι πάσχει τῷ διʼ ἀοριστίαν ἐκπίπτοντι.

First phrase:

ἔστι καὶ ἐν λεπτότητι καθάριος,...

There is a word καθαρειος (kathareios) which would have been pronounced as, and was later spelled καθαριος (katharios). However, καθάρειος is an adjective per LSJ:

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, κα^θάρ-ειος

With various (although similar) meanings: cleanly, neat, tidy; decent, respectable (men) > οι καθαρειοτεροι; daintiness (of food); purity. There’s also the connotation of the “economy of movement (in a surgeon's hand)” so there’s an idea of economy, of doing what’s only necessary only. That kind of elegance or refinement which is an interesting spin.

Muehli used καθαριότης in his transcription to change the adjective to a noun, but that is clearly not what is written in the manuscript. Saint-Andre accepts Muehli’s transcription and adds the note “καθαριότης means purity, cleanliness, neatness, scupulousness, integrity, elegance, refinement, simplicity, frugality, economy, etc.”

But Greek could turn adjectives into nouns to mean something like “that which is …” or “one who is…”

So, I could arguably come up with something like:

*There is refinement even in X … or Elegance is even in…X

Now, the X is the λεπτότητι / λιτότητι issue. I am reluctant to rethink the manuscript. However, my resolve wavered when I read in that definition linked above that καθάρειος is the opposite of λιτότης! This is the word that Usener uses to “correct” the manuscript. This is exactly the kind of wordplay I’d expect from Epicurus, too. But, let’s look at the actual word *in* the manuscript.

λεπτότητι is the dative of λεπτότης “thinness, opp. παχύτης (“thickness”); fineness, delicacy, opp. πάχος (“thickness”), thinness, meagreness, of body; metaphorical, subtlety.”

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, λεπτότης

Now, reviewing the Wiktionary entry for Usener’s λιτότης, λιτότητι is the dative singular. The meaning per LSJ is “plainness, simplicity” but LSJ also has that pesky “cj. for λεπτότης in Epicur.Sent.Vat.63.” meaning they thought it was the *wrong* word and that it was substituted for λεπτότης in the manuscript. But I’m not seeing that in Vat.gr.1950, and I’m not aware of any other list or text that includes this exact saying. I’m assuming LSJ is simply taking Usener et al.’s word for it? If anyone has any idea where this saying might show up in the manuscript tradition elsewhere, please share.

So, IF I take the manuscript literally, I get:

*There is elegance even in meagreness…

Paraphrase nominalizing the adjective?? *One who displays elegance even in meagreness…???

Okay, so there are the first five words!

ἧς is (per Wiktionary) the genitive singular for “who, which, that” and with the next two words - ὁ ἀνεπιλόγιστος - I can put together:

*..for the one who is inconsiderate or thoughless; …for the one who is unable to consider…

** There is elegance even in simplicity for the one who is unable to consider …

The next word παραπλήσιόν (according to Wiktionary) can either by an Attic spelling of πᾰρᾰπλήσῐος or the accusative of the word. LSJ provides various related meanings, including “coming alongside of : hence, coming near, nearly resembling ; of numbers, nearly equal, about as many ; of size, about as large ; of age, about equal.” So, the general meaning is “nearly equal” or “resembling.”

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, παραπλήσιος

τι “something”

πάσχει is the 3rd person singular active indicative (he/she/it) of πασχω and means “undergoes, experiences (vs. acting), experiences something, has something happen to one.”

τῷ διʼ ἀοριστίαν ἐκπίπτοντι. This appears to be a dative phrase with an embedded prepositional phrase inside it: τῷ (διʼ ἀοριστίαν) ἐκπίπτοντι. Let’s tackle τῷ ἐκπίπτοντι first. Ἐκπίπτοντι is a dative (to be expected from τῷ) present active participle of εκπιπτω, meaning “falling out of…; being thrown down…” It is a passive sense opposed to “throwing or casting out” (εκβαλλω).

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἐκπίπτω

The full LSJ definition has some interesting connotations, including “to be cast ashore” or “fall from a thing, i.e. be deprived of it.”

The prepositional phrase is διʼ ἀοριστίαν which appears to mean “because/for the sake of of illimitability.” LSJ specifically cites “illimitability” as the sense used in VS63. The word ἀοριστίαν has the sense of lack of limit or even indefiniteness or even indecision. So, the whole phrase appears to be something like:

***...for the one who is falling down because of lack of limits”

That is REALLY bad English, but if you’ve stuck with me this far, hold tight.

Review:

ἔστι καὶ ἐν λεπτότητι καθάριος, ἧς ὁ ἀνεπιλόγιστος παραπλήσιόν τι πάσχει τῷ διʼ ἀοριστίαν ἐκπίπτοντι.

Here’s my attempt at a translation, a little literal, a little paraphrase:

There is elegance even in simplicity. The one who is unable to consider this is nearly equivalent to the who falls down because of a lack of limits.

With that, I’m bringing in the scholarly translations to compare results and refine my own. In light of ALL that above, I’m inclined to agree with the direction of Saint-Andre and Long & Sedley:

Saint-Andre: There is an elegance in simplicity, and one who is thoughtless resembles one whose feelings run to excess.

Long and Sedley: There can be refinement even on slender means, and one who fails to take account of it is in a similar position to someone who goes astray through ignoring limits.

I hope this all helps others to see how Long & Sedley and Saint-Andre arrived at their translations. One big change in theirs compared to others is acceptance or not of Usener's change to λιτότητι which means "austerity, frugality, frugalness, thrift." Whether one accepts what's easily read in the manuscript or whether one want to "correct" the manuscript is going to change VS63 dramatically!

Well, it comes down to where you decide if you're going to trust the manuscript and use λεπτότητα "elegance" or whether you're going to correct the scribe like Bailey and Usener and substitute λιτότης "limit".

And it's not elegant as in fancy. It's elegant as in not fussy. I like the connotation of the economy of movement or elegance of the surgeons hands.

Quote from Cassius

the relevant text appears clearly awkward so as to indicate corruption

That's a slippery slope. Where does one just ignore the manuscripts and substitute whatever, one wants to be there?

Quote from Don

Well, it comes down to where you decide if you're going to trust the manuscript and use λεπτότητα "elegance" or whether you're going to correct the scribe like Bailey and Usener and substitute λιτότης "limit".

This got me wondering about the history of the manuscript, and I found this on Wikipedia:

Quote

There are many extant manuscripts of the Lives, although none of them are especially old, and they all descend from a common ancestor, because they all lack the end of Book VII.^[25] The three most useful manuscripts are known as B, P, and F. Manuscript B (Codex Borbonicus) dates from the 12th century, and is in the National Library of Naples.^[a] Manuscript P (Paris) is dated to the 11th/12th century, and is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.^[27] Manuscript F (Florence) is dated to the 13th century, and is in the Laurentian Library.^[28] The titles for the individual biographies used in modern editions are absent from these earliest manuscripts, however they can be found inserted into the blank spaces and margins of manuscript P by a later hand.^[29]

There seem to have been some early Latin translations, but they no longer survive. A 10th-century work entitled Tractatus de dictis philosophorum shows some knowledge of Diogenes.^[30] Henry Aristippus, in the 12th century, is known to have translated at least some of the work into Latin, and in the 14th century an unknown author made use of a Latin translation for his De vita et moribus philosophorum^[30] (attributed erroneously to Walter Burley).

Diogenes Laertius - Wikipedia

Kalosyni : You bring up a good point about manuscripts. I tried to dig up everything I could find on Vat.gr.1950 that contains the Vatican Sayings:

DigiVatLib

The manuscript is contained in (and was found in) Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (the Vatican Library) at shelfmark Vat.gr.1950.pt.2 (Vatican, Greek manuscript No. 1950, part 2).

Manuscript content is dated between 1301-1350 CE.

Height: 243

Width: 165

The binding: The paper boards are covered with brown leather and are marked with straight lines. On the back are printed in gold the shields of Pope Paul VI and Eugenius Tisserant cardinal librarian.

Codex was among those who were rescued by the French in 1797 and restored in 1815 (v. seal of Bibl. Nat. Paris in ff. 1r and 545ν).

Codices Vaticani Graeci. Codices 1745-1962, recensuit P. Canart, t. I, Codicum enarrationes, in Bibliotheca Vaticana 1970 (Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae codices manu scripti recensiti), pp. 762-766.

Contents (with folio/page numbers):280r-340v: Xenophon, 427/26-c. 353 a.C. Xenophontis Memorabilia

341r-392v: Aurelius Antoninus, Marcus, imperatore romano, 121-180 <Marci Aurelii Antonini imperatoris in semetipsum libri XII>

392v-399r: Epictetus, sec. I-II Epicteti enchiridii paraphrasis christiana

401r-v: Epictetus, sec. I-II <Excerpta rhetorica>

401v-404v: Epictetus, sec. I-II <Florilegium seu gnomologium Epicureum>

408r-518v: Maximus Tyrius, sec. II <Maximi Tyrii dissertationes>

518v-540v: Albinus Smyrnaeus, sec. II Albini (Alcinoi cod.) epitome doctrinarum Platonis

542r-545v: Aristoteles, 384-322 a.C. Aristotelis de motu animaliunm

PS. I noticed that folios/pages 401v-404v has "Epictetus, sec. I-II <Florilegium seu gnomologium Epicureum>" which seems to be a misprint because it's corrected to Epicurus in parentheses. Not sure what's going on there, because those are the Vatican Sayings pages.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, μεθόριος

The LSJ accepts Usener 's corrections (see link), but I'm becoming more skeptical. I need to emphasize that the word "limit" in Usener/ Bailey comes from their "correcting" the clearly legible manuscript word καθαριος (katharios) to μεθόριος (methorios).

So, Usener is "correcting" TWO words out of the initial five. They're swapping out 40% of the first five words to make it say what they want!

Manuscript: ἔστι καὶ ἐν λεπτότητι καθάριος

Usener: ἔστι καὶ ἐν λιτότητι μεθόριος

Manuscript: There is elegance (καθάριος) even in meagerness (λεπτότητι)...

Usener: There is a limit (μεθόριος) even in frugality (λιτότητι)...

So even if I accepted frugality instead of thinness/meagerness, I have a hard time accepting the word limit. If I accepted λιτοτητι "frugality" I'd still come up with "There is elegance/refinement even in frugality..."

Plus, καθαρειος "refinement, elegance" is the opposite of λιτοτης "frugality, simplicity". And that sounds to me like something Epicurus would write, with using opposites to make some wordplay. Which is inadvertently what I wrote instead of sticking to meagerness!

There is elegance even in simplicity. The one who is unable to consider this is nearly equivalent to the who falls down because of a lack of limits.

My paraphrase would be something like: There is nothing wrong with frugal, simple living. In fact, it has its own sense of elegance and refinement. If one doesn't grasp this, that person is nearly the same as one who gets cast down in life for having no limits to his desires.

"Elegance" is probably not the best translation of καθαριος so I should stop using it. Here is the LSJ entry:

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, κα^θάρ-ειος

Here's Saint-Andres note to his translation:

Quote

Translating this phrase as "an elegance in simplicity" ties it to other statements Epicurus makes about both living beautifully (e.g., Vatican Saying #17) and living simply or naturally (e.g., Vatican Saying #21).

For reference, here are those two. They don't use καθαριος but hint at that sentiment:

VS17. It is not the young man who is most happy, but the old man who has lived beautifully; for despite being at his very peak the young man stumbles around as if he were of many minds, whereas the old man has settled into old age as if in a harbor, secure in his gratitude for the good things he was once unsure of.

VS21. Nature must be persuaded, not forced. And we will persuade nature by fulfilling the necessary desires, and the natural desires too if they cause no harm, but sharply rejecting the harmful desires.

PS: I'd encourage anyone who's interested to take a look at the καθαρειος definition above and the two below and post how they would translate this opening phrase:

"There is (καθαρειος) even in (choose 1: A. λεπτότης or B.λιτοτης)..."

A. λεπτότης

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, λ , λεπτό-ρρυ^τος , λεπτότης

B. λιτοτης

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, λ , λι?́ταργ-ος , λι_τότης

I'd be particularly interested if Joshua or some of our other poets wanted to take a stab at it.